


Like Star-Crossed Lovers

by EmmaArthur



Series: Whumptober 2019 [14]
Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Alex Whump, Alex and Michael have a much needed talk, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon Disabled Character, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Exhaustion, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Overworked Alex, Passing Out, Post Season 1, Whumptober, alex is tired
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-16
Updated: 2019-10-16
Packaged: 2020-12-20 18:24:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21061157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmmaArthur/pseuds/EmmaArthur
Summary: Alex exhausts himself on a mission to dismantle a Project Shepard facility with Michael. It forces them to talk things out.





	Like Star-Crossed Lovers

**Author's Note:**

> Whumptober day 13: **Adrenaline**.
> 
> This is late, and only vaguely connected to the prompt, and it was really, really not meant to be this long. What are you doing, brain?

Alex wakes up with difficulty, feeling like he's moving through jelly. His eyelids are stuck together, and when he finally get them open, he winces at the light coming through a window.

He's exhausted, but this is also the deepest sleep he's had in weeks. Years, maybe. He barely remembers−actually, he doesn't remember how he fell asleep, let alone where. Is this his cabin? It doesn't feel like it, the noises are different and the window is at the wrong angle.

Suddenly worried, he opens his eyes fully, sitting up. The room is one he doesn't know, though the walls are stained wood like his cabin's. There's a photo of a family of strangers on the wall, but Alex's overnight bag and his prosthetic are leaning against a small desk.

He starts when the door opens, and braces himself for whatever may be coming through, but it's Michael who greets him by sticking his head in.

“Hey,” he says with a soft smile. “Finally awake?”

“What time is it?” Alex asks. “Actually, where are we?”

“Middle of nowhere Wyoming, and it's almost eleven,” Michael answers.

Wyoming. Alex remembers now, that they drove all the way to fucking Wyoming because of a single mention of a possible Project Shepard-adjacent facility out there in the Caulfield files. It's just Michael and him, because everyone else has too many commitments to take a week or more off for the eventuality of finding something there. Alex, now out of the Air Force, has time on his hands, and Sanders lets Michael decide of his own schedule, so they got paired up more by fate than by choice.

They took two days to drive up, and searched for three more days for the top secret facility, and they spent the whole time either trying to ignore each other or quarreling over stupid things, like who got to choose the radio station. It's been harrowing, spending so much time stuck in Michael's truck together, after barely talking for the last three months. Especially since Alex has been exhausted and in pain the whole time.

His leg hasn't taken well to all the sitting around, but it was bad even before. He hasn't been as diligent with his PT as he should be since he's out of a job, burying himself instead day and night in his father's bunker, set on dismantling Project Shepard completely.

Three days in, they finally found an abandoned military facility in the middle of a desert zone, and Alex spent the next seventy-two hours scanning and digitizing the hundreds of video tapes and the walls full of paper files, after they decided they couldn't bring them all back. He vaguely remembers Michael trying to convince him to sleep and eat, but he wanted to get it done as fast as possible so they could get out of there.

“You collapsed after we destroyed the facility,” Michael explains, as if following his train of thoughts. “I won't say I told you so, but−”

Alex rolls his eyes. “You just said it.”

“Right. It's only fair, since I had to haul your ass all the way here.”

“Where's here exactly?” Alex asks. They've slept in the truck or in roadside motels so far−neither has been good on his leg. “It's not a motel.”

“The only motel was thirty miles back and it was full for the night,” Michael says. “The closest town barely qualifies for the name and it only has a single store, so I went in and asked if there was something we could rent for the night. The owner had this cabin he uses only in the summer, so he gave me the keys for a fairly low price.”

“And I slept through all that?”

Michael shrugs. “Yeah, you wouldn't even stir. I was kinda worried, to be honest, but you were breathing fine. I called Valenti, but he told me you were probably just exhausted.”

“How did you get me in here?” Alex asks, gesturing to the bedroom around him.

“There's no one around for miles, so I levitated you,” Michael admits. “I couldn't get you to wake up, so it seemed the most comfortable way to do it.”

“Thanks,” Alex mutters, with only a little resentment, because this is the most normal conversation they've had in months.

It hurt, to find out that while he was waiting at the scrapyard for Michael to come back, worried and anxious, Michael was hooking up with his best friend. The mess with Max and Rosa put it all on the backseat for a while, but it only means that when Michael and Maria's new relationship emerged, it was already far more than a one-night-stand, and Alex didn't have a leg to stand on to protest.

He is, after all, the one who keeps leaving, as all of his friends keep reminding him. Because along with making his relationship with Maria public, and telling her about aliens, Michael also opened up to the group about their fling at seventeen, his hand injury, and Alex leaving. How he came back and gave Michael a new hope, only to falter and leave again. How loving Alex is _the worst thing that ever happened to him._

He'll remember it for a long time, walking into the Wild Pony to find Liz staring at him, half in pity and half in disappointment, and anger radiating out of Isobel and a newly resurrected Max. Maria mostly looked sorry, but Alex couldn't bear to look at her after Michael started making out with her.

Kyle and Rosa stuck with Alex, Rosa mainly because they had collectively decided that Alex's cabin was the only place she didn't risk being seen, so she's the one who found him in the middle of the night, working his way down a bottle of whiskey and sobbing his heart out. She's always been a loyal friend, so she wouldn't hear a word about Michael after that, despite Maria's pleading.

It was easy, too easy, to start spending his free time at his father's bunker, instead of with his friends. Liz came to see Rosa most evenings, although she stayed cold toward Alex, so he started to leave before she made it to his cabin. Kyle was on call when he wasn't helping Liz with her new projects. Alex just slipped away, and no one missed him. He set up a secure email server, and kept everyone updated on what he found about aliens−that way he didn't have to talk to anyone in person. He received his official discharge from the military−and conveniently forgot to tell anyone about it, so he could spend his days down in the bunker without being disturbed.

When he finally manage to create a solid new identity for Rosa, and her father was read in on part of the secret, enough to know his oldest daughter was alive again, she moved out of Alex's cabin, and he started sleeping down in the bunker, too. Or at least, napping for an hour and a half at a time, setting his alarm to wake him up before the nightmares could start.

If only he'd taken his car and driven out here himself, instead of calling Kyle to come with him−who had declined, citing work, but immediately asked everyone else on the new group chat Alex hadn't known about−he wouldn't be in this mess. He wouldn't be having to thank Michael for taking care of him while he was passed out, trying to shut down both the part of him that wants to kiss him senseless and the one that wants to weep until his body is all dried out.

“Alex−” Michael starts, hesitant.

Alex blinks and focuses back on him, waiting.

“The way you wouldn't stop out there...it scared me,” Michael says.

“I'm fine,” Alex says, maybe a little too quickly. “Sorry I passed out on you, I was running on adrenaline. Can you pass me my leg?”

Michael hesitates again. Alex winces internally. This is the first time that Michael has shown any real emotion toward him since...since...that night when Alex waited for him at his trailer, Alex thinks. No, he showed something, something like panic, back at the facility, but Alex was too focused to listen.

“I washed the sock,” Michael says, picking up the prosthetic. “I've seen you do it.”

Alex sighs, holding out his hands. Why is Michael being so nice, so attentive all of a sudden? Can't he let Alex move on? It was easier when they weren't talking, or when they were arguing in the car and Alex could wonder why he ever wanted to be with such a dick.

He starts putting on his prosthetic without saying a word. Michael apparently removed his pants before putting him to bed, but they're on the back of the chair by the desk, with his jacket. His stump is red and inflamed, reminding him that he spent way too much time with the prosthetic on−he didn't remove it in the three days they spent at the facility. There's no way he's going to walk on it today.

He gives up when working his stump into the socket sends a bolt of pain up his leg that makes him gasp. “Fuck,” he murmurs to himself. He looks up, meeting Michael's worried eyes, and tells himself he has no choice.

“Are my crutches still in your truck?” he asks. He always brings a pair of crutches on overnight journeys, if only because it's the quickest way for him to move during the night.

“Yeah,” Michael nods.

“Can you−”

“I'll go get them.”

Michael backs out of the room, and Alex stands up to reach his pants. He doesn't have anything to pin the empty leg, so he just rolls it up until it doesn't hang limply anymore. He hates the idea of depending on Michael for anything. This isn't going to work. Not when he's trying so hard to forget him.

He carefully does not think about how he tried to forget Michael for ten years and utterly failed. There's no point in that. Michael has moved on, so Alex has to, too.

Michael comes back a minute later with his crutches in hand. He doesn't say anything as he hands them to Alex, but his look does say a lot. Except Alex has a terrible track record at deciphering Michael, doesn't he?

“Thanks,” he says, getting situated.

“You sure you should be up?” Michael asks.

“Why?”

“Because you just passed out for seventeen hours, after being up for three whole days? I don't know, Alex, it's been crazy.”

Alex sighs. “Why do you care?” he asks.

“Because I care about you!” Michael explodes.

“Do you?” Alex asks in a low voice. He pushes past Michael to get out of the bedroom. The rest of the cabin looks similar, wooden walls and few decorations beside more family pictures. There's a table by the small kitchenette, so Alex pulls up a chair with one crutch and sits down heavily.

He _is_ exhausted and light-headed, and he probably shouldn't be out of bed. But he's not going to let Michael tower over him while he lies down. It's hard enough that he can't drive Michael's truck, so he can't even get out of here if he needs to. 

He should have gone alone. It's not like Michael has been any use, is it? Alex is the one who found the facility, and he did all the work there, up to drenching everything in gasoline to burn it.

“Why did you come?” he asks.

“You needed someone to drive you?” Michael offers, leaning against the table.

Right, there's that. Kyle's argument was that Alex's leg wouldn't  allow him to drive this far, and of course he was right. But he could have booked a flight and rented a car, right? Or something, anything else. Why did he say yes to this trip?

Because a part of him still craves Michael's presence, even if he can't have him.

“That's not why,” Alex shakes his head.

Michael shrugs. “Maybe not.”

“Why are we here? I could have slept in the truck,” Alex says, fishing his pant pockets for the bottle of painkillers he carries everywhere. He pops it open and swallows two pills dry, vaguely hoping that Michael doesn't know what they're for.

Michael looks pointedly at the bottle. “This is more comfortable,” he says.

“Truck's fine.”

“For hook-up sex, sure. For actual sleep...”

“Guerin, please don't start.”

“Fine. As I said, you scared me,” Michael says, and his face is so open that Alex has to look away. He has no right to still look at Alex this way. “I talked to Valenti. He said you've been working a lot, too much. Tiring yourself out.”

“He said that?” Fuck Kyle.

“He wasn't surprised by the stunt you just pulled,” Michael continues. Alex opens his mouth in anger at the nearly patronizing tone, but Michael keeps speaking. “A lot's happened, and I missed all this, and I'm sorry. We said we were going to be friends, but I've been a shitty friend, haven't I? You've worked yourself to the ground, and I didn't even notice.”

“Friends?” Alex blinks. He tries to think back to their interactions−wait, that day at the scrapyard. After Michael slept with Maria the first time. They talked about friends then, but− “We were−” he tries to say, but he doesn't even know. “We were−but you−fuck! We can't be friends, Michael! We can't−” Alex's hand finds the edge of the table, and he hangs on to it like it's going to keep him from falling−it's too much, he's too tired, way too tired− “We can't be just friends! I can't do that!”

“Then I don't know, Alex! I don't understand!”

“You−I came to tell you that I was done running away from−from us,” Alex breathes. “And you−you started dating my best friend.”

Michael closes his eyes. “I couldn't do it anymore, Alex. Waiting for you to leave again. I needed something else.”

“And I couldn't give you that,” Alex nods, trying to ignore the tears he feels running down his cheeks. “I understand that. I understand that what we had wasn't−enough. You've made it real clear. _The worst thing that ever happened to you._”

“No, Alex, I didn't mean−”

“You did,” Alex interrupts him. “And you're right. Crossing paths with me brought you so much pain. What my father did−”

“But it wasn't you−”

“Yes, it was. I left. Over and over. All because my father got into my head, and I was so scared he'd hurt you even more. So I can't blame you for not being there anymore when I was finally ready to stand up to him.”

Michael hangs his head.

“But it hurts,” Alex continues. “If what you felt those time I walked away was a fraction of what I felt when you told me you're trying to leave the planet, well, I−I get why you stopped waiting. Then finding out that you're dating Maria, it was−” 

“Fuck, Alex, I didn't−” Michael stops him. “I thought you left because all the alien stuff was too much, not because−I'm not leaving, Alex. The console, the spaceship, it's a dream. It's not going to happen, not in my lifetime, not in fucking Roswell.”

“You know, I fucking hate Roswell. I couldn't wait to leave. Except for, what, one week, you made me want to stay forever. I even told Maria that, before my father−”

They both look down at Michael's left hand, healed and unblemished. “I didn't want Max to heal it,” Michael says.

“I would have stayed,” Alex ignores him. “For you. But my father sat me down and explained exactly how no one would ask questions, if you were found dead in a back alley somewhere.”

Michael takes a shaky breath.

“Now I know that you can−defend yourself, against him. I'm glad.”

Michael opens his mouth, but Alex waves a hand to make him wait.

“I'm pretty sure this facility was the last of Project Shepard,” he says. “I've destroyed everything. That means you're safe.”

“Thank you,” Michael breathes. “This is amazing, Alex, but you can't keep going like this.”

Alex closes his eyes, struggling to reign his emotions back in. “We're not friends, Guerin. It hurts too much. You don't get to act like you care.”

“But I do care,” Michael says.

“I know. But I can't handle it. You need to let me go. I can't be your friend and watch you be with Maria.”

“Then what do you need?”

“I need you to...give me time. Space. I don't know. Maria was my best friend. So was Liz. I lost all three of you. You've moved on, so...I need to do the same.”

“Oh, Alex,” Michael murmurs, burying his face in his hands.

“What? What's wrong?” Alex asks, cursing himself for even caring.

Michael's shoulders are shaking, and Alex can't tell if he's crying or laughing. Maybe both. “This is a huge mess, isn't it?” 

“What do you mean?”

“I couldn't wait for you anymore, and that's when you were finally ready. We're like...star-crossed lovers.”

Why twist the knife in the wound? Alex frowns. Michael raises his head again, and tears are falling down his face, but he's also smiling bitterly. “Being with Maria was easy,” he says. “But I never moved on.”

“What?” Alex blinks, shocked.

“I haven't been able to move on in ten years when you were gone, so how could I move on now?” Michael says, like it's obvious and Alex is silly for not understanding it. “I thought you didn't want me enough to stay, and then when you came, it was too late. But I still love you, Alex. That's what I told Isobel, what she was repeating to everyone that day. Love is the worst thing that ever happened to me, because it brought me so much pain, but I will always love you.”

“But if I just hurt you−” Alex murmurs, latching onto that because the rest is too much to process.

“The pain wasn't you. It was your father, and it was circumstances, and our connection being fucking cosmic because we're not even from the same planet, but it wasn't you.”

Alex makes a sound, somewhere between a sob and a groan. His brain doesn't know what to do with this, but his body does. Crying again, he stands up and hops over to Michael. “You really mean that?” he murmurs.

Michael grasps him in a hug so tight he can barely breathe. “Not being with you is what hurts,” he says. 

Alex returns the hug, letting Michael hold him up when his balance fails him. He's hurting all over, and he can barely keep his eyes open, but Michael is in his arms, and there is no better feeling in the world.

“I'm sorry,” he murmurs. “For leaving.”

“Me too,” Michael whispers back. “For everything.

They only separate when Alex is on the verge of falling over completely, and Michael gently lowers him back down to his chair. “I love you,” Michael murmurs.

Alex coughs before he can answer, and his voice is wet and rough when he does. “I love you too.”

He doesn't want this moment to eve r end, but it isn't going to be that easy.

“What do we do?” he asks.

Michael crouches beside him.  “We're not leaving this place until you're rested and you can walk, at the very least. So we have plenty of time to figure it out.”

“What about Maria?”

Michael shrugs. “Our relationship has run its course, and she knows it as well as I do. I won't break up with her over the phone, but she hasn't even texted me since we left, so I think she already knows. She's a psychic, remember?”

Alex nods. “You really want this? Us? You want to try?”

“I don't just want to try, Alex. I want us to finally have what was taken from us ten years ago.”

“Me too,” Alex smiles hesitantly. 

**Author's Note:**

> It got a bit out of hand, but at least it ends well! :) Tell me what you think!


End file.
